


My Marks On Your Skin

by Reiya



Series: Soulmates [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Temporary Character Death, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, au where the first time you touch your soulmate it leaves a mark, this has some interesting results when you meet your soulmate by trying to kill each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiya/pseuds/Reiya
Summary: The first time you touch your soulmate, it leaves a mark forever etched onto their skin.Nicky and Joe’s soulmarks are more unique than most.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Soulmates [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922629
Comments: 28
Kudos: 690





	My Marks On Your Skin

The first thing Nile notices about Joe and Nicky are their soulmarks. In her defence, they’re pretty hard to miss.

Most people have their marks on their hands or arms. Colourful patches of skin where palms have grasped in a handshake or fingers have brushed against each other in a crowd. The moment when a person first touches their soulmate is usually an innocent, unsuspecting touch.

Andy and Booker’s marks are like that. Andy has the imprint of a hand grasping her arm. It had taken Nile a long time to see it because Andy almost exclusively keeps her mark covered. First with black arm wraps in Afghanistan and then with long sleeves later in France. Nile has never asked but, from the pain in Andy’s eyes whenever she looks at it, Nile suspects she knows who the mark belongs to.

Booker’s soulmark is subtler still. His skin is marked with the imprint of fingers brushing against the back of his hand. It looks like the soulmarks described in classic romance novels, where one accidental touch was all it took to discover the other half of one’s soul. He doesn’t talk about his mark either, although Nile notices the way he touches it subconsciously whenever he talks about his wife.

Nile doesn’t have her soulmark, not yet. Her bare skin has never touched her soulmate’s and left bright patches of colour in its wake. But she’s seen plenty of marks over the years. On hands, arms and occasionally legs and chests. But she has never seen ones like Joe and Nicky’s.

While most people’s marks tell the story of a friendly meeting or an accidental touch, Joe and Nicky’s are the first Nile has seen that the tell the story of violence. Nicky’s is more obvious, a bright splash of colour across the side of his face in the obvious imprint of a fist. But Joe’s is harder to look at, the mark of two clear handprints wrapped around his neck, forever branded into his skin.

Nile doesn’t ask about them. Partly because it seems rude to, and partly because she doesn’t know how she’d even bring up the topic in conversation. “ _Hey Joe, what’s the story behind your soulmark? Did Nicky actually managed to kill you the first time he touched your neck?"_ Or “ _So Nicky, did Joe punch you in the face before or after you tried to strangle him? And was realising you were soulmates enough to stop you from trying to kill each other, or did you keep going for a while after?"_

In the end, it’s Joe who brings it up first.

“You can ask you know,” he tells her, gesturing towards the mark on his neck.

Nile flushes, not realising that her staring had been so obvious.

“I didn’t mean…” she stammers, feeling her cheeks heating up. “I mean, you don’t have to…”

Joe laughs.

“I don’t mind,” he says with a smile. “It’s not often that Nicky and I get to tell the real story of how we met. You wouldn’t believe some of the lies we’ve had to come up with to explain why our soulmarks look like they do.”

“Mine is easier to explain,” Nicky chimes in, the hint of a smile curling at the corners of his lips. “I usually tell people that my husband is very clumsy and we met when he accidentally hit me in the face. He bought me a drink after of course, as an apology, and we have been in love ever since.”

“It’s not as easy to convince people that my husband accidentally strangled me,” Joe adds, smirking at Nicky. “And saying I met my soulmate while trying to spice up my sex life with a choking kink doesn’t tend to go down well at parties.”

Nile looks between them, not quite sure if they’re joking or not.

“So,” she begins, trying to think how to delicately phrase the question. “How did it actually happen? When did they appear?”

“It was a few hours after we met each other,” Joe says, eyes going a little dreamy. “We had already killed each other so many times with swords that we had been forced to resort to alternative methods.”

Nile doesn’t know how a man can sound so lovestruck when reminiscing about how his soulmate had repeatedly murdered him. But then again, none of their lives were exactly normal and it’s not like it hadn’t worked out well for them in the end.

“I was winning the fight, but Nicky cheated,” Joe continues, and Nicky raises a single judgemental eyebrow and sighs fondly.

“Hayati, throwing sand in your face was not cheating, it was just good tactics. Don’t pretend that you wouldn’t have done the same to me if you had thought of it first.”

“So anyway, after Nicky _cheated_ ,“ Joe repeats, putting heavy emphasis on the last word. “He managed to pin me down and get his hands around my throat.”

Nile isn’t quite sure attempted strangulation should be described in the same tone most people would use to reminisce about particularly fantastic sex. But she’s not going to be the one to interrupt.

“We didn’t realise at first, what had happened. It was only when I hit Nicky to try and get him off me that my mark appeared on his skin and I knew.”

“And it was only after Joe knocked me off him that I saw my hands had left behind more than bruises on his neck,” Nicky adds. There’s something in his voice, an undercurrent of sadness and regret. It is well hidden, but Nile has known him long enough to read the subtleties of his tone.

“And then you stop fighting?” she asks. She can see it so clearly. Two enemies discovering that they are destined for each other and finally laying down their weapons to fall in love.

“Not quite,” Joe laughs, rubbing the back of his neck a little sheepishly. “Then Nicky accused me of being a demon sent to tempt him to damnation and I accused him of using black magic to fake the marks. We killed each other quite a few more times before finally accepting that they were real.”

“Wow,” Nile exclaims. “That’s…quite the story.”

She wants to ask more. Joe tells the story like it’s a fun anecdote, not the bloody tale of violence that it must have been. He’s also never hidden his marks, although he could. They are low enough on his neck that a high collar would cover them, but he seems to wear low-cut clothing deliberately to show off the imprint of Nicky’s hands around his throat. She wonders why he displays it so openly, when the story behind it is so sad.

But the question is not something that she will voice aloud. Especially not after she’d seen the look in Nicky’s eyes as he listened to Joe talk. His tone may have been light, but there was a sadness behind his gaze as he listened to Joe recount the story of how he had almost died the first time they ever touched. Nile can’t imagine how it would feel, to know that without their immortality, their soulmate’s death would have been on their hands.

* * *

Later that night, she hears them whispering in the dark on the bed next to hers. She tries not to listen, but the room is otherwise silent and it is impossible not to overhear. Instead she keeps her eyes closed and her body motionless, pretending to be asleep to allow them the privacy of the moment. In the quiet she can hear the soft brush of fingertips tracing skin, almost lost in the darkness.

“Do you ever wish it had been different?” she hears Nicky whisper. She can’t see him, but somehow she knows that he is tracing his fingers across Joe soulmark, touch light and reverent. “That I had not marked your skin forever with my violence.”

“No,” she hears Joe murmur back. The bed creeks as he shifts to pull Nicky closer. “Because every time I look at our marks, it reminds me of what we have overcome. Together. I would never wish to change that.”

Although Nile can’t see it, she somehow knows that Nicky is smiling.

“You are one half of my soul,” Nicky says, voice filled with such adoration that it makes a lump form in Nile’s throat.

“As you are mine,” Joe replies. “Even if we had no marks, I would still know that. You have marked my heart just as surely as you have marked my body and no force on this earth could take me from your side.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://kazliin.tumblr.com/) where you are free to come and scream with me about The Old Guard


End file.
